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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5275734" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks! I wrote the novella mainly to introduce the setting I'll be exploring more deeply in the novel, and because I got the idea and couldn't shake it, which is often how my works gets started. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> The novel will feature Keric as a protagonist, and is set about five years after the events of The Labyrinth. I'm just shy of 100k words on the novel right now, should finish it up in a week or two. I wish you could still grab Story Hour threads as text files. I remember reading a lot of the classics here in plain text, and it's really easy to convert them to files my Kindle can read.  * * * * Session 26 (October 27, 2008)Chapter 114Vasily brought his plasma cannon up, but it was too late, as the chryssalid filled the view from the vision port in his helmet.  A white flash erupted against its side as someone got off a shot, but it didn’t distract the alien in the least, as it extended itself in mid-leap, lashing out with a powerful sweep of its claws that knocked Vasily from his feet and launched him flying into a heap of rubble piled at the edge of the crater from the earlier blaster launcher strike.  He hit hard enough that he saw stars flash even within the protective shelter of his powered suit, but he immediately started fighting to get up, even as loose rocks and mud scattered under his feet.  The others fell back as quickly as they could, unleashing fire at point-blank range into the alien.  Hadrian ducked under another lunge of its claws, firing his old holdout gun, a Glock slugthrower, into its body.  He fired off an entire clip without apparent effect, and as the alien swept around he dove forward, only to be hit and knocked sprawling over the lip of the crater, tumbling head over heels into the still-glowing mess of hot rubble at its bottom.  The alien reared up as a bolt from the plasma tank exploded against its back, but its focus was quickly drawn back as both Jane and Catalina blasted it.  It sprang forward and lunged at Jane; Mary leapt screaming out of its path, narrowly avoiding getting trampled in its rush.  The former CIA agent held her ground and calmly fired again, hitting the alien in the face.  She paid the price for her efforts a moment later as the alien picked her up and hurled her backward.  She struck the bomb tank and flipped, slamming into a tree with enough force to crack the trunk.  She hung there for a moment, then dropped to the ground, landing face-first in a mush of melted snow and mud.  The alien spun to face Catalina, but before either she or it could attack, it staggered forward as Vasily leapt onto its back.  “Get the other one!” he yelled at her as the alien violently swung around, trying to grab or dislodge its undesired passenger.  With the weight of his armor Vasily topped five hundred pounds, but the alien still managed to hop aside, twisting and finally flopping over onto its back, trying to tear the Russian free.  With a roar Vasily took its momentum and flipped the thing over him, slamming it to the ground.  The alien was up before he could exploit the move, pounding its claws into his gut with enough force to buckle the heavy armor protecting his torso.  Vasily fell back, and that was enough of an opening for it to spring onto him, driving him down under its body as it tore at his armor with its razor-sharp claws.  Vasily punched at its body, trying to get a hold, to push it off him, but in vain.  The alien, frustrated in its efforts to get through the armor, reached down and grabbed onto Vasily’s head with both of its claws.  It crunched down with its full strength and twisted.  Metal popped and groaned as the fittings gave way under the pressure, and Vasily screamed as his neck quickly approached the point where it would snap like a twig.   It was hard for Catalina to turn from the raging battle, but she did so, running away from the deadly grapple between Vasily and the alien.  As she got clear, she saw the blur of motion coming around the far side of the hill, an onrushing form that could only be the second chryssalid.  She knew what Vasily had meant, knew that she had only one thing that could stop the monster.  She didn’t know whether the damned thing would even work; she’d been knocked onto it when she’d been hit by a fusion shell just a few minutes ago, and hadn’t had any time to run a diagnostic on her suit’s functions.  But she activated the servo that Grace had installed, and with a whirr the heavy launcher swung up from across her back, the grip snapping into position where she could reach up and grab it.  A new targeting reticule appeared across her VDU, one that superimposed the outline of the charging alien.  A red indicator flashed in the corner of her viewscreen, indicating that the launcher was ready to fire. If it didn’t explode in the tube and kill her instantly.There was no time to think; the alien was close and closing fast, already within the safe distance that Grace had warned them about, but there was no other solution.  Even as the alien appeared between the nearest line of trees ahead, she fired.  The bomb didn’t have too far to go, arming as it left the barrel of the launcher, streaking through the air like a silvery football.  Everything seemed to slow down around her, with most of her focus on the missile, which covered the sixty meters separating her and the alien in a heartbeat that seemed to last a minute.  She clearly saw the chryssalid duck the missile, which shot past it, and even started to turn before it impacted a boulder.  A disconnected part of her mind noted the range on her VDU, sixty-eight meters.  Then the bomb exploded.Catalina’s vision filters darkened her visor, keeping her from being blinded, but that was the least of her worries as she was flung over onto her back by the concussive force of the blast.  She didn’t see the chryssalid being vaporized by the explosion, or her companions behind her being knocked down, throwing them to the ground with admittedly less force than she’d withstood.  Ironically it was Vasily who was least affected, even helped as the shockwave accomplished what he’d been unable to do, knocking the chryssalid off him.  The alien rolled heavily on its back, letting out a piercing shriek. Vasily, battered and more than a little stunned, fumbled for his plasma pistol, but once again the alien was faster.  Even as the reverberations from the blaster explosion echoed off the surrounding hills, the chryssalid twisted its body and lunged back to its feet.  No sooner had it reoriented than it flung itself at Vasily again, claws outstretched.  The wounded Russian tried to roll away from it, but the alien kept on coming, smashing him with powerful blows from its claws, as if it had given up on subtlety and now intended to pound him into paste through raw strength.  Finally Vasily came up against the trunk of a tree, and with nowhere left to roll, the alien drew up both of its claws, fixing on the image of itself reflected in the Russian’s visor. But before it could strike, the chryssalid felt something hard poke into the back of its neck, right under the outer ridge of bone from its armored skull.  Before it could react, before it could so much as register the threat, Hadrian discharged Vasily’s dropped plasma cannon, firing a pulse of white-hot energy into the alien monstrosity.  The backblast knocked the Marine off his feet, but the alien had a much worse time of it, the plasma severing its spine and driving tendrils of angry fire into its brain.  The chryssalid spun and flung itself into the air, twisting in a violent paroxysm that ended with it landing in a wild tangle of arms and legs, smoke rising from the ugly opening in the back of its head.  It twitched, flinched, and finally died as Vasily pulsed a bolt from his plasma pistol through its left eye. “Hate you,” he said, unleashing a string of Russian curses at the dead monster.</blockquote>

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